Advocate Business
Collate information to assist stakeholders (primarily inside the IT function) to understand where technology can best contribute to enabling business value and supporting the organization.
Improvement Planning
Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)
Representative POMs are described for Advocate Business at each level of maturity.
- 1Initial
- Practice
- Feedback from the business to IT is sporadic and is not systematically processed.
- Outcome
- IT is generally unaware of changes occurring in the business and lacks understanding of emerging opportunities and challenges.
- Metrics
- % customer satisfaction (internal customers).
- % key entities with IT relationship manager.
- Outcome
- IT is generally unaware of the contribution it can make to the business.
- Metrics
- % customer satisfaction (internal customers).
- % job satisfaction within IT.
- 2Basic
- Practice
- Capture basic information requirements from the business via formal routes (e.g. financial reports, etc.).
- Outcome
- IT management has basis from which to inform its decision-making processes.
- Metrics
- # formal data sources captured.
- # frequency updating of formal data sources.
- Practice
- Conduct satisfaction survey with the business.
- Outcome
- Clearer understanding of business's view of IT in organization.
- Metric
- % customer satisfaction
- Practice
- Have IT management process key information captured from the business via formal routes.
- Outcomes
- IT management acquires basic understanding of the business.
- Knowledge of business outside of IT management is sparse as no process for knowledge dissemination at this level.
- Metrics
- % customer satisfaction (internal customers).
- % job satisfaction within IT.
- 3Intermediate
- Practice
- Capture information from formal routes for all key areas within the organization using automated routes where practical.
- Outcome
- IT now has robust collection process for information from formal sources.
- Metrics
- # formal data sources captured.
- # frequency updating of formal data sources.
- Practice
- Actively capture and process information from senior level informal routes (e.g. calls to past work colleagues, etc.) for all key areas of the business.
- Outcome
- IT takes concrete steps to obtain information via informal routes and acts on the information received.
- Metric
- # outstanding issues
- Practice
- Have IT management processes and communicates key information captured from the business via formal and informal routes to support the decision-making process within IT.
- Outcome
- IT management know results from information collection process and are able to integrate this into their decisions.
- Metric
- % customer satisfaction with key IT decision outcomes
- Practice
- Identify complexities of the business structure and the challenges facing each area of the business to support IT management decision-making.
- Outcome
- IT management understands the business and is able to articulate its understanding to support an improved understanding of the business challenges for other IT staff.
- Metrics
- % customer satisfaction (internal customers).
- % job satisfaction within IT.
- # ideas from IT staff to improve the business.
- 4Advanced
- Practice
- Capture intelligence and feedback from all relevant levels across the organization using combination of formal and informal sources.
- Outcome
- IT has a strong understanding of the business and the issues confronting it.
- Metrics
- # issues identified.
- # events identified.
- Practice
- Process and disseminate key information captured from the business via formal and informal routes to support the decision-making processes across all of IT.
- Outcome
- Awareness of business intelligence is spread across a wider range of appropriate employees as opposed to being concentrated solely within IT management.
- Metric
- % customer satisfaction with key IT decision outcomes
- Practices
- Identify complexities of the business structure, as well as the challenges and influences facing each area of the business to support decision-making across IT.
- Share this knowledge with relevant IT staff.
- Outcome
- IT is able to target initiatives to support specific business entities.
- Metrics
- % customer satisfaction (internal customers).
- % job satisfaction within IT.
- # ideas from IT staff to improve the business.
- 5Optimized
- Practice
- Identify continuous improvement opportunities using formal and informal intelligence captured via formal and informal sources.
- Outcome
- Ensures that process for communicating business information within IT continues to be relevant and optimized.
- Metrics
- # continuous improvement opportunities identified.
- # continuous improvement opportunities implemented.
- % customer satisfaction.
- Practice
- Embed the ablity of staff of all levels within IT to identify opportunities to deliver value to the business and share this knowledge with their colleagues.
- Outcome
- All levels of staff in IT understand the role they can play in supporting the business and driving business value.
- Metrics
- % customer satisfaction (internal customers).
- % job satisfaction within IT.
- # ideas from IT staff to improve the business.